Shon Weismann from Real Valladolid to Granada for €3.5m.
Javi Munoz from Eibar to Las Palmas on a free.
Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus to Tottenham for €30m.
Petar Ratkov from Backa Topola to RB Salzburg for €4.5m.
Neves to Saudi apparently
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That’s one of the biggest surprises yet - at 26, that isn’t one last big payday for him, that is spending likely prime years in the Saudi league. The league will undoubtedly improve, but if I was the Portuguese national team manager I would have some concerns.
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What a weird career.
So much promise early on at Porto.
Then bloody Wolves (even in the Championship) and Saudi…
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I get why he’d go there but not why Saudi have earmarked him especially for that fee, to take him, if their past activity has anything to go by it should be Moutinho the 1 they offer the big contract to without paying a fee.
Maybe we should ask them if they’d take Hendo and/or Fab.
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The article doesn’t mention if he has agreed personal terms. He could still reject going there? 
His move to Wolves in the first place raised a lot of the same questions. He was a much better and more in demand player than moving to a championship side, even an ambitious one. Was he in control of his own career or was Mendes just moving him to somewhere that would pay him the most money? Same questions now
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I’m guessing because he agreed to go? I’m assuming that the Saudis don’t want their league to be an elephant’s graveyard for once great players. It would not surprise me if they have cast their net far and wide to see who bites.
If that’s what they want to do then that’s fine with me. They aren’t distorting national leagues that way and if players just want the cash to play in their sandpit then I’ve no objection to them leaving.
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Ziyech and William Carvalho are two others being strongly linked now
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Reminds me a lot of Oscar moving to China.
You may be right, who knows. The intention of the Saudi’s remains largely unclear but we’ve seen the type of high calibre high profile players that jumped ship for the money when they went to China not too long ago so it’s baffling to me why Neves in particular. Will Abu Dhabi/Dubai also get in on the action and follow what the Saudi’s are doing? They’ve been relatively quiet whilst letting their neighbors do all the action.
What we do know is Ronaldo is there, Benzema is there, Kante is there and they’ve made offers for Zaha, Messi, Busquets to join up.
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Saudi Arabia is a big enough country to have a viable league, and obviously have the finances to move that league up a few notches. It is already ranked highest in AFC. Abu Dhabi’s domestic league is well behind that, so I think it would be more of a reach - on the other hand, they already have the expensive team playing in front of half-empty stadium model perfected in Manchester.
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Viable league on the level of the secondary types of Europe.
This is just a bit shit really.
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In some ways seeing them build their own league is a preferable use of their wealth than buying someone else’s. Oil money has put serious distortions into European football, well beyond simply driving up the price of players.
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Preferable would be future proof their own country and support its citizens.
Then again that goes for a lot of countries.
My other issue would be if they start distorting it via loaning these talents out to European teams of which they have interests in.
I think there is an element of bread and circuses to it, actually.
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Apparently one of the Saudi clubs (Al-Ittihad) is trying to land Son from Spurs. At 30, he isn’t likely now to win anything at Tottenham, and has arguably been somewhat underpaid. No particular reason why he should let Kane decide what the next few years look like for both of them, so not as implausible as I thought as a first reaction.
At this age, he’s supposed to be in his prime, regularly playing for a CL team. I doubt that any Tottenham fan can begrudge him and Kane big moves but I think they’ll hope that these two go abroad in case it does happen. He’d be a quality addition for Bayern if they weren’t so stacked up front.
On the other hand, Saudis are really going to test the market, perhaps even distort it in the manner Chelsea and Man City do. I’m certain that UEFA won’t mind big clubs that are violating FFP take care of their violations by selling a few superfluous players there and then using that money to further invest into players and clubs under UEFA’s umbrella.
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Imagine Spurs selling Son and Kane to the Saudis for big money and then buying an array of duds, like they did after selling Bale. I think that will be the end of Levy